 Chapter 9 They sat a while and talked of the tragedy, the dead pre-pompa at once a link and a barrier between them lying at their feet. Her ready sympathy brought her near, but while the dog lay there mangled and bloody he could think of nothing else. It was Elodie who suggested immediate and decent burial. Why should he not go to the hotel for a workman and a spade? He smiled. You always seem to come to my help in time of trouble, but while I am absent, what will happen to him? I will guide him, my friend," said Elodie. He marched off. In a few minutes he came back accompanied by one of the hotel baggage-porters. The grave on the Wasterland by the Rhone was quickly dug, and pre-pompa covered over for ever with the kindly earth. As soon as the body was hidden Andrew turned away the tears in his eyes. "'And now,' said he, "'let us sit somewhere else, and you shall tell me about yourself. I have been selfish.'" The tale she had to tell was very old and very sad. She did not begin it, however, still drawing off her old gloves for coolness's sake she disclosed a wedding-ring on her finger. His eye caught it at once. "'Why, you are married?' "'Yes,' she said. "'I am married.'" "'You don't speak in the tone of a happy woman?' She shrugged, hopeless shoulders. "'A woman isn't happy with a gujar for her husband?' "'Now a gujar is a word for which scoundrel and miscreant are but weak translations. It denotes the lowest depths of infamy.'" Andrew frowned terribly. "'He ill-treats you?' "'He did, but that is past. Fortunately I am alone. He has deserted me.'" "'Children, thank God no,' replied Elodie. And then it all came out in the unrestrained torrent of the South. She had been an honest girl in spite of a thousand temptations. When Andre met her she was as pure as any young girl in a convent. It wasn't that she was ignorant. Oh no! The girl who had gone through the workrooms of Marseille and the music halls of France and could retain virginal innocence would be either a blessed saint or an idiot. It was knowledge that had kept her straight. Knowledge and pride. She was not for sale. Grandeur, no. And love? If a man's love fell short of the desire for marriage, well it didn't amount to a row of pins. Besides, even where there could be a love quite true without the possibility of marriage, she had seen enough of the world to know the unhappiness that could happen to women. No. Andre must not think she was cold or prudish. She had set out to be merely reasonable. To Andre the girl's apology for preserving her chastity seemed perfectly natural. In her world it was somewhat of an eccentric feat. Et puis, enfin? And then, at last, came the conquering male, a singer and a light opera-touring company in the chorus of which she was engaged. He was young, handsome, played secondary parts. One of the great ones, in fact, in her limited theatrical hierarchy. He fell in love with her. She, flattered, responded. Of course, he suggested setting up house together then and there. But she had her aforesaid little principles. His infatuation, however, was such that he consented it to run the terrific gauntlet of French matrimonial procedure. Why people in France go to the nerve-wracking trouble of getting married heaven only knows. Camels can gallop much more easily through needles' eyes. Anybody can be born in France. Anybody can die. Against these phenomena the form multiplying and re-writing administration is parlous. But when you come to the intermediate business of world population, then bureaucracy steps in and plays the very devil. L.O.D. and R.I.O. Marisco desired to be married. In England they would have gotten a special license, all gone to a registry office, and the thing would have been over. But in France, M. and M. Marisco and M. Figusso and the Huit Huitier Wada, who insisted on coming forward although he was not legally united to Mada, and lawyers representing each family were set all agog, and there were meetings and quarrels and delays. L.O.D. had not assent to her diary, which of course was the stumbling-block, with the final result that nothing was done which might not have been done at once, namely that the pair were doubly married, once by Musée Le Maire and then by Musée Le Curie. For a few months she was happy. Then the handsome R.I.O.L. became enamoured of a fresh face. Then L.O.D. fell ill. Oh, so ill, they thought she was going to die. And during her illness and slow recovery, R.I.O.L. became enamoured of every fresh face he saw. A procession. If it had been one, said L.O.D. philosophically, she could perhaps have arranged matters. But there had been endless. And what little beauty she had her illness had taken away, so her only weapon was gone. And R.I.O.L. jeered at her and openly flaunted his infidelities in her presence. When she used, beyond a certain point, the reddy tongue with which Providence had dimmed out her, she was soundly beaten. The Gujar! cried Andrew. Ah, it was a life of hell! But they had kept nominally together, in the same companies, she singing in the chorus, he playing his second roles. And then there came a day when he obtained an engagement at the opera at Buenos Aires. She was to accompany him. Her birth was booked, her luggage packed. He said to her, I have to go away for a day or two on business. Meet me at the boat train for Avra on Wednesday. She went to the Garcena de la Zaire on Wednesday to find that the boat train had gone on Tuesday. A salto, eh? Did ever anyone hear of such a dirty trick? And later she learned that her birth was occupied by little Maudiste of the Place de la Madeleine with whom he had run away. That was two years ago. Since then she had not heard of him, and she wished never to hear of him again. And you have been supporting yourself all the time on the stage? Yes, I have lived, but it has been hard. My illness affected my voice. No one wants me very much. But still, she smiled wrongly, I can manage. And now you, I saw you yesterday at the palace. They know me there, and gave me my entree. You have had a beau success. You are famous. I am so glad." Monastery he deprecated the fame, but acknowledged the success which was due to her encouragement. He told her of the racehorse Elodie and his lucky inspiration. For the first time she laughed and clapped her hands. Oh! I am flattered. Yes, and greatly touched. Now I know that you have remembered me. But if the horse had lost, wouldn't you have pestered against me, say?" Andrew replied soberly. I could not possibly have lost. I knew it would win. Just as I know that five minutes hence the sun will continue to shine, I have faith in your star, Elodie. My star is not worth very much, my star. It has been to me, said Andrew. They talked on. By dint of questioning she learned most of his not-over-eventful history. He told her of Horatio Bacchus, and of the season on the sands, when first he realized her original idea of exploiting his figure, of Prépimpin in his prime, and their wanderings about Europe. And now, alas, there was no longer a Prépimpin. But how would you give the performance this evening without him? she asked. He shrugged his shoulders. He had not given a thought to that yet. It was a loss of his friend that wrung his heart. You are so gentle and sympathetic. Why is it that no woman has loved you? Perhaps because I have not found a woman I could love," said he. She did not pursue the subject, but sighed and looked somewhat drearily in front of her. It was then that he became aware of the cruel treatment that the years had inflicted on her youth. He knew that she was under thirty, yet she looked older. Her color had gone from her olive skin, leaving it shallow. Her cheeks were drawn. Haggard lines appear beneath her eyes. Her cheekbones and chin were prominent. It struck him that she might be fighting a hard battle against poverty. She looked underfed. He asked her, Have you an engagement here in Avignon? She shook her head. No, she was resting. How long have you been out? She couldn't tell. Many weeks. And prospects for the immediate future? The tournée Tardieu was coming next Monday to Avignon. She knew the manager. Possibly he would give her a short engagement. And if he doesn't? I will arrange," said Elodie, with a show of bravery. Andrew frowned again, and his mild blue eyes narrowed keenly. He stretched out his arm and put his delicate fingers on her hand. You have given me your help and sympathy. Do you refuse mine? Why does your pride forbid you to tell me that you are in great distress? What would be the good? she replied with averted face. How could you help me? Money? Oh, no! I would soon have flinged myself in the river. You are talking foolishness, said he. You know that you are in debt for your little room and that the proprieteur won't let you stay much longer? You know that you have not sufficient food? You know that you have had nothing to-day but a bit of bread and a cup of coffee, if you have had that? Confess!" The corners of her mouth worked, prophetically. In spite of heroic effort, a sob came into her throat and tears into her eyes. Then she broke down and wept wretchedly. Yes, it was true. She had but a few soot in the world. No other clothes but those she wore. Oh, she was ashamed—ashamed that he should guess. If she had not been weak he would have gone away and never have known. And so on and so forth. The situation was as plain as day to Andrew. Elodie, if not his guardian angel, at any rate his mascot, was down and out. While she was crying he slipped unperceived a hundred-frank note into the side pocket of her jacket. At all events she should have a roof over her head and food to eat for the next few days, until he could devise some plan for her future welfare. Her future welfare? For all his generous impasses he gave him cause for cold thought. How the deuce could have wandering even though successful young mountain-bank assure the future of a forlorn and untalented young woman? Voyons, cher ami, said he comfortably. All is not yet lost. If the theatre does not give you a livelihood we might try something else. I have my little savings and I could easily lend you enough to buy a petit commerce, a little business. You could repay me bit by bit at your convenience. Tia, didn't you tell me you were apprenticed to a dressmaker? But Elodie was hopeless. All that she had learned as a child she had forgotten. She was fit for nothing but posturing on the stage. If Audrey could get her a good engagement that was all the age she would accept. Andrew looked at his watch. The afternoon had sped with magical rapidity. He reflected that not only must he dine, but he must think over and rehearse the evening's performance with pre-pump our part cut out. He did not improvise before the public. He rose with the apologetic explanation. My little Elodie, said he, as they walked along the battlemented city walls towards the great gate, have courage. Come to the palace tonight. I will arrange that you shall have a loge. You only have to ask for it, and after my turn you shall meet me, as long ago, at the Café des Nogossions, and we shall supp together and talk of your affairs." She meekly consented. And when they parted at the entrance to the hotel in Europe he said, if I do not ask you to dine it is because I have to think and work. You understand? But in your pocket you will find a quabbe en dine. Au revoir, cher ami." He put out his hand. She held it, while her eyes, tragically large and dark, searched his with painful intensity. Tell me, she said, is it better that I should come and see you to-night, or that I should throw myself over the bridge into the Rhône? If you meet me to-night, said Andrew, you will still be alive, which, after all, is a very good thing. Cheviandre, said Elodie. The devil, said Andrew, entering the courtyard of the hotel and wiping a perspiring brow. Here am I faced with a pretty responsibility. Experience enabled him to give a satisfactory performance, and his manager prepared his path by announcing the unhappy end of Pré-Pampin and craving the indulgence of the audience. But Andrew passed a heart-broken hour at the music hall. In his dressing-room were neatly stored the dog's wardrobe and properties, the gay ribbons, the harness, the little yellow silk hat which he wore with such a swaggering air, the little basket carried over his front paw into which he would sweep various objects when his master's back was turned, the drinking-dish, labelled dog. He suffered almost a human bereavement, and then the audience, for this night, was kind. But as conscientious artists he was sensitively aware of makeshift. A great element of his success lay in the fact that he had trained the dog to appear the more clever of the two, to score off his pretended slumsiness and to complete his tricks. For years he had left uncartivated the art of being funny by himself. Without Pré-Pampin he felt lost, like a man in a sculling-race with only one awe. He took off his make-up and dressed, a very much worried man. Of course he could obtain another trained dog without much difficulty, and the special training would not take long. But he would have to love the animal in order to establish that perfect partnership which was essential to his performance. And how could he love any other dog than Pré-Pampin? He felt that he would hate the well-meaning but pretentious hound. He went out filled with anxieties and repugnances. Elodie was waiting for him by the stage-door. She said, You got out of the difficulty marvellously. But it was nothing like the performance you saw yesterday. Ah, no, she replied frankly. Voila! said he dejectedly. They walked, almost in silence, along the Avenue de la Gare, thronged as it was at the time of their first meeting, with the good citizens of Avignon, taking the air of the sultry summer evening. She had told him afterwards that she felt absurdly small and insignificant, trotting by the side of his gaunt-height, a feeling which she had not experienced years before when their relative positions were reversed. But now she regarded him as a kind of stricken god, and womanlike she was conscious of haggard face and shrunken bosom, whereas before she had stepped beside him proud of the ripe fullness of her youth. Whether the common place of venture was leading them, neither knew. For his part, Pity compelled superstitious sentiment to the payment in some vague manner of a long-standing obligation. She had also given him very rare sympathy that afternoon, and he was grateful. But things ended there in a sort of blind alley. For her part, she let herself go with the current of destiny into which, by strange hazard, she had drifted. She had the humility which is the fiercest form of pride. Although she clung desperately to him as to the spa that alone could save her from drowning, although the feminine within her was drawn to his kind and simple manliness, and although her heart was touched by his grief at the loss of the dog, yet never for a moment did she count upon the ordinary romantic denouement of such a situation. The idea came involuntarily into her mind. Into the mind of what woman of her upbringing would not the idea come? But she banished it savagely. Who was she? Waste rag of a woman to attract a man. And even had she retained the vivid beauty and plenitude of her maidenhood, it would have been just the same. Elodie Fugaso had never sold herself. No! All that side of things was out of the question. She wished, however, that he was less of an enigmatic, though kindly, sphinx. Over the modest supper of sandwiches and coated grown wine, in an inside corner of the café des negotiations, it was all the café could offer, and beside she swore to a plentiful dinner. They discussed their respective full-on positions. But rightly she tacked away from her own concerns towards his particular dilemma. If he shrank from training another dog and yet distrusted a solo performance, what was he going to do? Take a partner like his friend. She forgot the name. Yes, Bacchus, on whom perhaps he could rely, and who naturally would demand half his salary. Never again, Andrew declared, feeling better after a draught of old hermitage. The only thing I could think of was to engage a competent assistant. Then Eddardy's swift brain conceived a daring idea. You would have to train the assistant. Of course. But, he added a dismal tone. Most of the assistants I have seen are abysmally stupid. They are dummies. They give nothing of themselves for the performer to act up to. In fact, said Eddardy, trying hard to steady her voice, you want someone entirely and simply with you who can meet you halfway, like Prépimpin. Precisely, said Andrew. But where can I find a human Prépimpin? She abandoned knife and fork, and with both arms resting on the table looked across at him. Eddardy suddenly struck him that her great dark eyes, intelligent and submissive, were very much like the eyes of Prépimpin. And so, womanlike, she conveyed the idea from her brain to his. He said very thoughtfully, I wonder. What? What have you done on the stage? What can you do? Tell me. Unfortunately, I have never seen you. She could sing. Not well now because her voice had suffered, but still she sang true. She had a musical ear. She could accompany any one on the piano, part through a mile. She could dance. Oh, to that she owed her first engagement. She had also learned to play the castagnette and the tambourine, al espagnol. And she was accustomed to discipline. As she proceeded with the unexciting catalogue of her accomplishments, she lost self-control, and her eyes burned, and her lips quivered, and her voice shook in unison with the beatings of a desperately anxious heart. Our Andrew, although an artist dead set on perfection and a shrewd man of business, was young, pitiful, and generous. The pleading dog's look in Eddie's eyes was too much for him. He felt powerless to resist. His brain worked swiftly, devising all kinds of artistic possibilities. Besides, was not fate accomplishing itself by presenting this solution of both their difficulties? I wonder whether he would care to try the experiment. With an effort of feminine duplicity, she put on a puzzled and ingenuous expression. What experiment? He was somewhat taken aback. Surely he must have misinterpreted her pleading. From the dispenser of fortune he became the seeker of favours. I know it's not much of a position to offer you, said he, almost apologetically, but if you care to accept it. Of your assistant, she asked, as if the idea had never entered her head. Why, yes, if you were consent to a month of very hard work, you would have to learn a little elementary juggling. You would have to give me instantaneous replies in act and speech. But if you would give yourself up to me, I could teach you. But, mon pauvre André, she said with an astonished air. This is the last thing I ever dreamed of. I am so ignorant I should put you to shame. Oh, no you wouldn't, said he confidently. I know my business. Wait. Les affaires sont les affaires. I should have to give you a little contract. Let us see. For the remainder of my tour, ten weeks, ten francs a day with hotel en pension and railway fares. To Elodie, independent wave in Théâtreland, this was wealth beyond her dreams. She stretched both hands across the table. Do you mean that? It is true? And if I please you, you will keep me always? Why not, said Andrew? And if you show talent, we may come to a better arrangement for the next tour. And if I show no talent at all? He made a deprecating gesture, and grinned in his charming way. But Elodie's intuition taught her that there was the stern purpose of a man behind the grin. She had imposed her helplessness on him this once. But if she failed him she would not have, professionally, a second chance. I insist on your having talent, said Andrew. The walk home to her dingy lodgings repeated itself. She felt very humble yet triumphant. More than ever did she regard him as a god who had raised her by a touch from despair and starvation to hope and plenty. And in her revulsion of gratitude she could have taken both his hands and passionately kissed them. And yet she was proudly conscious of something within her, unconquerably feminine, which had touched his godship and wrought the miracle. They halted in the narrow, squalid street before the dark entry of the house where she lodged. Andrew eyed the poverty-stricken hole in disgust. Obviously she had touched the depths. "'Tomorrow you must move,' said he. "'I shall arrange a room for you at the hotel. We shall have much business to discuss. Can you be there at ten o'clock?' "'What have you say shall be done,' she replied humbly. He put out his hand. "'Good night, Elodie. Have courage, and all will be well.' She murmured some thanks with a sob in her voice, and, turning swiftly, disappeared up the evil-smelling stone stairs. The idea of kissing her did not occur to him until he found himself alone, and remembered the pretty iddle of their leaf making long ago. He laughed, none too gaily. Between boy and girl, and man and woman, there was a vast difference." CHAPTER X That was the beginning of the combination known a little while afterwards as Le Petit Patout. Elodie, receptive, imitative, histrionic, showed herself from the start an apt pupil. To natural talent she added the desire, born of infinite gratitude, to please her benefactor. She possessed the rare faculty of perfect surrender. Andrew marveled. Had he hypnotized her she could not have more completely executed his will. And yet she was no automaton. She was asked enough to divine when her personality should be effaced, and when it should count. She spoke her patter with intelligent point. She learned, thanks to Andrew's professional patience, and her own vehement will, a few elementary juggling tricks. Andrew repeated the famous Prépimpin Cigar Act. Open mouthed, Elodie followed his manipulations. When he threw away the cigar, it seemed to enter her mouth quite naturally against her will. She removed it with an expression of disgust and hurled it at Andrew, who caught it between his lips, smoked it for a second or two, and grinned his thanks. With a polite gesture he threw it, as the audience thought, back to her. But by a sleight of hand trick the cigar vanished, and she caught, to her delighted astonishment, a pearl necklace, which, as she clasped it round her neck, vanished likewise. After which he overwhelmed her with disappearing jewels. At once it became a popular item in their entertainment. In the course of a few months he swore she was worth a hundred, Prépimpin. He could teach her anything. By the end of the year he evolved the grotesque performance that made Le Petit Patu famous in Provincial France, brought them for a season to Paris, at the Cirque de Randon, to London, for a week, at the Hippodrome, to the principal cities of Italy, and doubled and trebled the salary which he enjoyed as Petit Patu all alone with the dog. Meanwhile it is important to note a very swift physical change in Elodie. When a young woman born to plumpness is reduced by misery to skin and bone, a short term of succulent nourishment and absent of worry will suffice to restore her to a natural condition. She had no beauty, save that of her dark and luminous eyes and splendid teeth. Her features were coarse and irregular. Her uncared full skin gave signs of future puffiness. But still, after two or three happy months, she more or less regained the common attractiveness and the audacious self-confidence of the Marseille gamine who had asked him to kiss her long ago. Thus, imperceptibly, she became less an assistant than a partner, lesser paid servant on the stage than a help-meet in his daily life. Looking at the traditions of their environment and at the enforced intimacy of their vagabondage, one sees the inevitability of this linking of their fortunes. That there was any theorist's love about the affair, I have very grave doubts. Andrew, in his secret soul, still hankered after the faraway princess, and Elodie had spent most of her passionate illusions on the unspeakable Raoul. But they had a very fair basis of mutual affection to build upon. Philosophers will tell you that such is the basis of most happy marriages. You can believe them or not, as you please. I am in no position to dogmatize. At any rate, Le Petit Patu started off happily. If Elodie was not the perfect housewife, he must remember her upbringing and her Devil May Carrick kind of theatrical existence. Andrew knew that hers was not the habits of the faraway one, who like himself would be a tidy soul, bringing into commonplace tightness an exquisitely harmonious sense of order. But the faraway one was a mythical being, endowed with qualities which it would be absurd to look for in Elodie. Besides, their year being mainly spent in hotels, she had little opportunity of cultivating housewifely qualities. If she neglected the nice conduct of his underlinning after the first few months of their partnership, he could not find it in his heart to blame her. Professional work was tiring. Her own clothes needed her attention. But still the transient comfort had been very agreeable. In Paris, too, at first she had played at housekeeping in the apartment of the Faux-Bourg-Chang Jolnie. But Elodie did not understand the Bonne, and the Bonne refused to understand Helle-D'Y in the matter of catering, and they emphasized their mutual misunderstanding with the unrestrained speech of children of the people. Once or twice Andrew went hungry. In his sober and dignified way he drew Elodie's attention to this unusual condition. It led to their first quarrel. After that they ate very comfortably at a little restaurant around the corner. It was not the home life at which Andrew had dreamed, not even the reincarnation of Madame Flint sitting by the round table, darning socks by the light of the shaded lamp. Elodie loathed domestic ideals. Mon vieux, she would declare, I had enough sewing in my young days. My idea of happiness would be world without needles and thread. He noted in her too a curious want of house pride. Dust gave her no great concern. She rather loved of litter of periodicals, chiffon, broken packets of cigarettes, tobacco, and half-eaten fruit on the tables. A picturesque you never attracted her attention. To remain in the house, dressed in her out-of-door clothes, seemed to have vain extravagance and discomfort. A wrapper and slippers, the more soiled and shapeless the better, were the only indoor wearer. Andrew deplored her lack of literary interest. She would read the foitons of the petit journal and the matin in a desertary fashion, but she could not concentrate her mind on the continuous perusal of a novel. She spent hours over a pack of greasy cards telling her fortune by intricate methods. The same with music, though in this case she had a love for it in the open air when a band was playing, and was possessed of a natural ear, and could read easy pieces and accompaniments at sight with some facility. But she would never try to learn anything difficult. She would never do more than strum a popular air or two until swift boredom paralyzed her nerves. Yet, for all her domestic slatterness, the moment she emerged from private into professional life, her phlegmatic indolence was transformed into quick energy. No rehearsal wearied her. Into every performance she concentrated the whole of her being. If it were a question of mastering her grotesque accompaniment to a new air on Andrew's one-string fiddle, she would slave for hours until it was perfect. She kept her stage costume in scrupulous repair. Her makeup box was a model of tightness. She would be late for lunch, late for dinner, late for any social engagement, but never once was she late for a professional appointment. On the stage her loyalty to Andrew never wavered. No man could have a more ideal co-worker. She never lost her head, demanded a more prominent position, or grudged him the lion's share of the applause. In her praiseworthy lack of theatrical vanity, writes like a day, by way of a commune, she was unique among women, a pearl of great price. Also, when they walked abroad, she dressed with neatness. Her hair, a stringy bush at home, appeared a miracle of coiffure. Lips and eyes received punctilious attention. The perfection of her high-heeled shoes was a matter of grave concern. Whatever may have been underneath, the outside of her toilet received anxious care. She fought much of externals. Andrew came within her purview. She did her best to remodel his outer man more in accordance with his prosperity. But what woman can have sartorial success with a man who is the tailor's despair? Lackaday is pathetically insistent on her manifold virtues. She retains all through the years her street-child's swift intelligence. She has flair. She predicts instinctively the tastes of varying audiences. She has a vivid imagination, curiously controlled by the most prezac common sense. He rarely urns in taking her advice. To her further credit balance she is more saving than extravagant. Bits of jewellery please her, but she does not crave inordinate adornment. When he buys a touring car for the greater comfort of their vagrant life, she is appalled by the cost and upbraids him with more than a touch of surestness. Her tastes do not rise with her position. She would soon have a choucroute ghani than a four-quarter of Paris' lamb or a duck à la presse. She could never understand why Andrew should pay four or five francs for a bottle of wine when they could buy a good black or grey for three sous-a-liter. On tour, gaieteers were things unthought of. But during periods of rest in Paris she cared little for excitement. With an income relieving her from the necessity of work, she would have been content to lounge and slip shot about the house till the day of her death. Once Andrew, having to entertain, for politic reasons the director of a Paris music hall, took her to the Café de Paris. The guest, in a millinaire way, had suggested that resort of half-hungry wealth. Maurice Andrew had never entered such a place in his life, nor naturally had L.O.D. Knowing, however, that one went there in full dress, he disinterred a dress-suit which he had bought three years before in order to attend the funeral of a distinguished brother artist, and sent L.O.D. with a thousand-frank note to array herself in an adequate manner at the Gallerie Lafayette. L.O.D.'s economical soul shrank in horror from the expenditure at one fell swoop of a thousand francs. She bought, God knows what, for less than half the money. Proud of her finery, secretly exalting also that she had a matter of twenty pounds or so put away in her private stocking, she flaunted down the crowded restaurant, followed by the little fat director, only remarkable for a diamond flashlight in his shirt-front, and by Andrew, in ordinately long and gawky, in his ill-fitting, short-sleeved evening suit, his ready-made white tie already wandering in grievance towards a sympathetic year. Women in dreams of diaphanous and exiguous raiment stared derisively at the trio as they passed their tables. Eddody stared back at them. Now, lackaday, honest soul, had not the remotest notion of what was wrong with her attire. In his eyes she was dressed like a queen. She wore, says he, a beautiful emerald green dress, and a devil of a hat with a lot of dark blue feathers in it. But, as she was surrendering her cloak to the white-capped lady of the vestillare, there came, from her merry adjoining-table, the clear cut remark of a young woman, all bare arms, back and bosom, but otherwise impeccably vestured. They ordered to allow it in a place like this, de gris de bâtignolle. Unsuccessful ladies of easy virtue from white-chapel, perhaps, is the nearest rendering of the phrase. Eddody had quick ears. She also had the quick temper and tongue of Marseille. She hung behind the two men who proceeded to their table unconscious of drama. In these places, she spat, they pay naked women like you to come to attract men. You fear the competition of the modest, Maville. The indiscreet young woman had no retort. She flushed crimson over neck and shoulders, while Eddody, triumphant, swept away. She burned with the insult, dilated upon it, repeated over and over again her rapporteur, offered her costume to the frank criticism of Andrew and their guest. Did she look like a gris? Did her toilette in any way suggest the bâtignolle? In vain did the fact director proclaim her ravishing. Andrew, at first indignant, assured her that the insulter had been properly set down. If it had been a man, he would have lifted the puppy from his chair and beaten him before the whole restaurant. But a woman! she had met her match, Eddody. In vain, he confirmed the director's opinion. Eddody could not eat. Food stuck in her throat. She could only talk interminably of the outrage. The little fat director made his escape as soon as he had eaten the last mouthful of dinner. Eh bien, said Eddody, as they were driving home to the foe-box on Johnny. And it is all fixed up, the Paris contract? My dear, replied Andrew gently, you gave us little chance to discuss it. I prevented you, cried Eddody. I? Bon Dieu, oh no, it is too much. You first take me to a place where I am insulted, and then reproach me for being an obstacle between you and your professional success. No doubt the naked woman will be a better partner for you. She could weadle and coax that little horror of a manager. I, who am an honest woman, am a drag on you. And so on, with a whirling unreason with which Andrew had grown familiar. But the episode of the Café de Paris marks the beginning and the end of Eddody's acquaintance with the smart world. She hates it with a fierce jealousy, knowing that it is a sphere beyond her ken. Herein lay a fundamental principle of her character. The courtesan, with her easy adaptability to the glittering environment which she craves, and Eddody, essentially child of the people, proud and virtuous according to her lights, were worlds apart. A bit of a socialist, Eddody, she stuck fiercely to her class. People she was, people she would remain. A door of the people she had tried to peacock it among the gentry. She had been detected in her borrowed plumes. At the stupid reference to her supposed morals she snapped her fingers. It was idiotic. It was the detection of the plumage that rankled in her soul. From that moment she hated society and every woman in it with an elaborate ostentation. The very next day she sold the emerald green dress and the devil of a hat, and, with a certain grim satisfaction, stuffed the proceeds into the stocking of economy. In spite of the disastrous dinner Andrew obtained the parish engagement. He was not, however, greatly surprised, so far had his education advanced, when Eddody claimed the credit. At that dinner what did you do? You sat silent as the obelisk of the Place de la Concorde. It was I who made all the conversation. Monsieur Wolf was very enchanted. Andrew grinned. I didn't know what I should do without you, Eddody, said he. Now, in sketching the life of Andrew Lackaday and Eddody, I gain labour under the difficulty of having to compress into a few impressionistic strokes the history of years. The task is in one way made easier in that these years of work and wandering scarcely share the development of anything. Hope is true at the end of the first year of their partnership seems to be true at the end of the second, third, fourth and fifth. After a time when their grotesque performance was a fixed and settled thing, there was little need for the invention of novelty or for rehearsal. Week after week, month after month, year after year, they reproduced their almost stereotyped entertainment. Here and there, according to the idiosyncrasy of the audience, they introduced some variety. But the very variations in course of time became stereotyped. Too violent a change proved disastrous. The public demanded the particular antics with which the name of Le Petit Patu was identified. Thus life was reduced to terms of beautiful simplicity. Yet perhaps, after all, their sentimental relations did undergo an imperceptible development, a subtle as that which led in the first place to their union. This union had its original promptings in a not unromantic chain of circumstances. Of vulgarity or sordidness it had nothing. Had Elodie been free, it would never have entered Andrew's head not to marry her, and she would have married him off hand. Lackaday insists on our remembering this vital fact. Sincere affection drew them together. Then the first couple of years or so were devoted to mutual discoveries. There was no question on either part of herring after strange fancies. Elodie carried her air of propriety in the happy-go-lucky musical world, almost to the point of the absurd. As for Andrew, he had ever shown himself the most lagging letharia of his profession. Indeed, for a period during which she suffered an exaggeration of her own sentiments, she upgraded him for not being the perfect lover of her half-forgotten dreams. Why don't you love me any longer, André? But I love you, surely. That goes without saying. Then why do you go on reading, reading all the time, instead of telling me so? She would be lying on a couch, dressed in her soiled wrapper and old bedroom slippers, occupied with nothing but boredom, while Andrew devoted himself to the unguided pursuit of knowledge, the precious pleasure of his life. He would put the book face downwards on his knee and pucker his brows. M'dieu, ma chérie, what do you want me to say? That you love me. I've just said it. Say it again. Je l'aime bien. Voila. And that's all? Of course it's all what remains to be said. The Honest Ferre was mystified. He could not keep on repeating the formula for the two or three hours of their repose. It would be the monotonous reiteration of the idiot. And he could no more have knelt by her side and poured out his adoration in the terms, let us say, of chastelard, than he could have lectured her on hittite inscriptions. What did she want? She sighed. He cared for his old book much more than for her. M'dieu, said he, if you would only read a bit, you would find it a great comfort and delight. You see, at this rather critical period each had their own grievance. Elodie only, of course, as far as their private lives were concerned. Elodie, somewhat romantically inside, wanted, she knew not what. Perhaps a recrudescence of the fine frenzy of the early days of her marriage with Raoul. Serba Andrew craves some kind of intellectual companionship. If Elodie grudged him the joy of books and he yielded to her resentment, he was a lost manta-bank. And the very devil of it was that, just at this time, he discovered the most fascinating branch of literature imaginable. Greases, fifteen decisive battles of the world, picked up in a cheap addition, had put him on the track. He procured Kingslake's Crimea. He was now deep in the study of Napier's Peninsula War. He studied it pencil in hand and notebook by his side, filled with diagrams and contours of country, and little parallelograms, all as cue denoting Army Corps or divisions. Of course, he did not expect Elodie to interest herself in military history, but he deplored her unconcealed hatred of his devotion to a darling pursuit. Why could not she find pleasure in some intelligent occupation? To spend one's leisure in an untidy sloth did not consort with the dignity of a human being. Why didn't she do this or that? She rejected all suggestions, retorted, why couldn't he spend a few hours in relaxation like everybody else? If any, he would go and play billiards at the cafe. That he should amuse himself outside among men was only natural. Sitting at home in her company over a book got on her nerves. Horatio Bacchus encouraged her maliciously. In Paris he made the flat in the faux-barque Saint Denis his habitual resting-place, and at his meals in their company of the cafe round the corner. If there is one thing, my dear Elodie, more futile than fighting battles, it is really about them. He declared upon of their symposia. Voila! You hear what Horace says, an educated man who knows what he is talking about. It's a kind of disease like chess or the study of the railway guide, and when he refers it to the conversation of a beautiful and talented woman, it's worse than a disease. It's a crime. My dear fellow! He cried with an ironical gleam in his dark eyes. You're blind to the treasures the gods have given you. Any ask and write a textbook. But the art of conversation is a gift bestowed by heaven upon the very few. Elodie, preening herself, asked, Is it true that I have that gift? You have the flow of words. You have wit. You talk like a running brook. You talk like no book that ever was written. I would soon, my dear, listen to the ripper of your speech, to read all the manuals of military science the world has produced. Andrew saw her flattered to fluttering point. Don't you know that he is the greatest blugger in existence? he asked. But Elodie had fallen under the spell of Bacchus. Like him she loved talk, although her education allowed her only the lightest kind. She loved its give and take, its opportunities for the flash of wit or jest. Bacchus could talk about an old boot. She, too. He could analyze sentiment in his modern way. She could analyze it in her own unsophisticated fashion. Now Andrew, though death on facts and serious argument, remained dumb and bewildered in a passage at arms about apparently nothing at all. And while Bacchus and Elodie enjoyed themselves prodigiously, he gaped at them, wondering what the juice they found to laugh at. He was forever warning Elodie not to put a too literal interpretation on Bacchus' sayings. The singer had gone grey, and that touch of veneral ability gave him an air of greater distinction, as a broken-down tragedy and that he possessed when Andrew had first met him ten years or so before. Elodie could bandagesse with him, but when he spoke with authority, she listened over all. My dear André, she replied to his remark, I am not a fool. I know when Hoddis is talking nonsense and when he means what he says. And I maintain, said Bacchus, that this most adorable woman is being sacrificed of the altar of Caesar's comatries and the latest French handbook on scientific slaughter. I think, said Andrew, who had imprudently sketched his course of reading to the cynic, that the art of war by Colonel Fock is the most masterly thing ever written on the subject of warfare. But who is going to war these days, my good fellow? They're at it now, said Andrew. The Balkans, Turkey, Bulgaria, barbarians. What's that got to do with civilised England and France? What about Germany? Germany is never going to sacrifice her commercial position by going to war. Among great powers war is a lunatic anachronism. Oh, mon Dieu, cried Elodie, now you're talking politics. Bacchus took her hand, which held a fork on which was prodded a gherkin, there at lunch, and raised it to his lips. Pardon, cher madame, it was this maniac of an André, he's mad or worse. Years ago I told him he wanted to be a sergeant and a barrack-square. Just so, cried Elodie, look at him now. Here he is as soft as too penny-worth of butter. But in the theatre things do not go quite as he wants them. Oh, lala, it is right turn, quick march. And I, who speak, have to do just the same as the others. I know, said Bacchus, a prussian without bowels. Ah, my poor Elodie, my heart bleeds for you. Won't you keep it, that organ? asked André. He keeps it, retorted Elodie, where you haven't got it. Horace, understand me. You don't. Horace and I are going to talk. You smoke your cigar and think of battles, and don't interfere. It was said, laughingly, so that André had no cause for protest. But beneath the remark ran a streak of significance. She resented the serious tone at which André had led the conversation. He and his military studies and his war of the future. They bought her to extinction. She'd answered him obliquely. A young man of thirty, he behaved himself like the senior of this youthful, flashing, elderly man who had the gift of laughter who could pluck out for her all that she had of spontaneity in life. This conversation was typical of many which filled Elodie's head with an illusion of the brilliant genius of Horace Bacchus. In spite of her peevishness she had a wholesome respect for André, for his honesty, his singleness of purpose, his gentle masterfulness. But all the same that common detection of the drill sergeant in his nature formed a sympathetic bond between Bacchus and herself. In the back of her mind she set André down as a dull dog. For all his pouring-over books Bacchus could defeat him any day in argument. The agreeable villain's mastery of phrase fascinated her, and what he didn't know about the subtle delicacies of women's temperament was not worth knowing. She could tell him anything and count on sympathy, whereas André knew less about women than about his poodle dog. There was, I say, this mid-period of their union when they grew almost estranged. André, in spite of his loyalty, began to regret. He remembered the young girl who had rushed to him so tearfully as he was bending over the body of Pre-Pampin, the flashing vision of the women of another world. In such a one would he find the divine companionship. She would stand with him, their souls moaning together in awe before the majesty of Châtres, in worship before the dreaming spars of Rains, in joy before the smiling beauty of Azele Redoux. They would find a world of things to say of the rugged fair-land of Auvergne, all the swinning loveliness of the Côte d'Adu. They would hear each other's heart beating as they viewed great pictures. Their pulses would throb together as they listened to great opera. He would lie at her feet as she read the poets that she loved. She would also take an effectual interest in military strategy. She would be different. Oh, so different from Elodie. To Elodie's save for the comfort of inns, the accommodation of dressing rooms, and the appreciation of audiences, one time was exactly the same as another. She found amusement in city at a cafe with a glass of syrup and water in front of her, and listening to a band. Otherwise she had no aesthetic sense. She used terms regarding cathedrals and pictures for which boredom is the milder polite euphemism. A busy street gay with shop windows attracted her far more than any grandeur of natural scenery. She loved displays of cheap millinery and underwear. Andrew could not imagine the other one requiring his responsive ecstasy over a fifteen-frank purple hat with a green feather or a pile of silk stockings at four francs fifty a pair. The other one, in a moment of delicious weakness, might stand enraptured before a dream of old lace or exquisite tissue or what not, and it would be his joy to take her by the hand, enter the shop, and say, it is yours. But Elodie had no such moments. Her economical habits gave him no chance of divine extravagance. Even when he took her in to buy the fifteen-frank hat, she put him to shame by trying to bargain. So they lost touch with each other until a bird or two brought them together again. Figuratively, it is the history of most unions. In theirs the birds were corporeal. It was a Montpellier. An old man had a term with a set to performing birds, canaries, parochets, lovebirds, Beauregard. Elodie came across him rehearsing on the stage. She watched the rehearsal, fascinated. Then she approached the cages. Fais attention, madame! cried the old man in alarm. You will scare them. They know no one but me. Ménons, ménons! said Elodie. Voyons, s'ils m'éconnés. She spoke from Aigle Bagadoccio. But when she put her hands on the cages, the birds came to her. They hopped about her, fearlessly. She fished in her pockets for chocolate, her only extravagant vice, and bird after bird pecked at the sweet from her mouth. The old man said, truly the birds know you, madame. It is a gift. No one can tell whence it comes, and it comes to very few. There are also human beings for whom snakes have a natural affinity. Elodie shuddered. Snakes! I prefer birds. Ah, le petit amour! She had them all about her, on head and shoulders and arms, all unafraid, all content. Then all fluttering with their clipped wings about her lips. Except a grey parrot who rubbed his beak against her ear. Andrew, emerging suddenly from the wings, stood wonder-stricken. But you are a bird-woman, said he. I've heard of such, but never seen one. From that moment the town-bred, town-compelled woman, who had thought of bird-life only in terms of sparrows, set about to test her unsuspected powers. And what the old man and Andrew had said was true. They wandered to the Peru, the beautiful Louis Coteau's terrorist head of the great aqueduct, and sat in the garden. She alone, Andrew some yards apart. And once a few crumbs attracted a bird, it would hop nearer and nearer. And, if she was very still, it would light on her finger, and eat out the palm of her hand. And if she were very gentle, she could stroke the wild thing's head and plumage. A new and wonderful interest came into her life. To find birds, energy, who by this time hated walking from hotel to musical, so had her indolence grown accustomed to the luxurious car, trumped for miles through the woods, accompanied by Andrew almost as excited at herself at the new discovery. And he bought her books on birds, from which she could learn their names, the distinction between colours and marks, their habits, and their cries. It must be remarked that the enthusiastic search for knowledge, involving as it did much physical exertion, lasted only a summer. But it sufficed to re-establish friendly relations between the drifting pair. She found an interest in life apart from the professional routine. During the autumn and winter she devoted herself to the training of birds, and Andrew gave her the benefit of his life's experience in the sands. They travelled about with an aviary. And, while Andrew, now unreproached, frowned, pencil in hand, and note to put by his side over the sastetics of the Franco-Prussian War, Elodie, always in her slattily wrapper, spent in raptured hours in putting her feathered troupe through their pretty tricks, or in playing with them foolishly as one plays with a dog. Thus their midway mutual grievances imperceptibly vanished. The positive was eliminated from their relations. They had been beginning to hate each other. Hatred ceased. Perhaps Elodie dreamed now and then of the perfect lover. Andrew had ever at the back of his soul the faraway princess, the other one, the being who would enable him to formulate a mode of nibbler's existence and spiritual chaos, and then to live the wondrous life recalled by the magical formula. I must insist on this, so that you can recognise that the young and successful Monterbank, although dead set on the perfection of his Monterbankery, and, in serious fact, never dreaming of a worker-day existence outside the walls of a variety theatre, yet had the tentacles of his being spread gropingly, blindingly, octopus-like, to the major potentialities of life. Even when looking back upon himself, as he does in the group manuscript, he cannot account for these unconscious or subconscious feelings. He has no idea of the cause of the fascination wrought on him by military technicalities. It might have been chess. It might have been conchology. It might have been heraldry. Hobbies are more or less unaccountable. In view of his later career, it seems to me that he found in the unalluring textbooks of Klauschwitz and Foch, and those bound in red covers for the use of the staff of the British Army, some expressions of a man's work, which was absence of the sphere in which fate had set him clad in green silk tights. The subject was instinct with the commanding brain. If his lot had been cast in the theatre proper instead of in the music hall, he might have become a great manager. However, all that is by the way. The important thing, for the time we are dealing with, is his relations with Elodie for the remainder half of their union before the war. These, I have said, ceased to be positive. They accepted their united life as they accepted the rain and the sunshine and the long motor journeys from town to town. Spiritually they went each to their respective ways, un molested by the other. But they each formed an integral part of the other's existence. They were bound by the indissoluble ties of habit. And, as Elodie, now that she got her birds to amuse her, made no demands on Andrew. And, as Andrew, who had schooled his tidy soul to toleration of her sloveness, made no demands on Elodie, they were about as happy as any pair in France. When she passed thirty, her face cautioned, and her uncared-for figure began to spread. And then the war broke out. CHAPTER XI The outbreak of war knocked the pettipatou variety combination silly, as it knocked many thousands of other combinations in France. One day it was a going concern worth a pretty sum of money, the next day it was gone. They happened to be in Paris, putting in a fortnight's rest, after an exhausting four months on the road, and waiting for the beginning of a beautiful tour booked for Aix-les-Bains, for the race weeks at Dieppe and Doville, for Biorettes, the cream of August and September resorts of the wealthy. Then, in a dazzling flash, mobilisation. No more actors, no more stagehands, no more croupiers, no more punters, no more theatre-goers, no more anything, but all sorts and conditions of men getting into uniform, and all sorts and conditions of women trying to smile but weeping inward blood. Contracts, such as Andrews, were blown away like thistle-down. Peremptory authorities required Andrews papers. They had done so years before when he reached the age of military service. But now, as then, they proved Andrew indisputably to be a British subject. He had to thank Ben Flint for that, and the authorities went their growling way. What luck! cried Elodie, when she heard the result of the perquisition. Otherwise, he would have been taken and sent off to this salgue. I'm not so sure, replied Andrew, with a grim set of his ugly jaw, that I'm not going off to the salgue without being sent. But it is idiotic what you say, cried Elodie, in consternation. What do you think, Horace? Backers threw a pair of Elodie's corsets, which encumbered the other end of the safer on which he was lunging, onto the floor, and put up his feet and sucked at his cigar, one of Andrew's best. The box, by the way, Elodie, who kept the key of a treasure cupboard, seldom brought out, except for Backers. And said, Andrew isn't a very intellectual being. He bases his actions on formulas. Such people in times of stress even forget the process of thought that led to the establishment of the formulas. They shrink into a kind of trained animal. Andrea is just like a little dog ready to do his tricks. Some voice which he can't resist will soon say, Bingo! Dive your country! And our good friend, without changing a muscle of his ugly face, will stretch himself out dead on the floor. Truth, said Andrew, with a heart at lint in his eyes, does sometimes issue from the lips of a fool. Backers laughed, passing his hand over his silvering locks, but Elodie looked very serious. Absent-mindedly she picked up her corsets, and, of the weather being sultry, she fanned herself with them. You are going to enlist in the Legion? I am an Englishman, and my duty is towards my own country. Bingo is an English dog, said Backers. Reaction from gladness made Elodie's heart grow cold, filled it with sudden dread. It was hard. Most of the women of France were losing their men of vile necessity. She, one of the few privileged by law to retain her man, now saw him swept away in the stream. Protest could be of no avail. When the mild Andrew set his mug of a face like that, his long smiling lips merged into each other like two slugs, and his eyes narrowed to little pinpoints. She knew that neither she nor any woman, nor any man, nor the bondier himself, could move him from his purpose. She could only smile rather miserably. Isn't it a little bit mad, your idea? Mad? Of course he is, said Backers. Much reading in military textbooks has made him mad. A considerably less interesting fellow than Andrew, who, after all, has a modicum of brains, one Don Quioti, achieved immortality by proceeding along the same lunatic lines. Then Elodie flashed out. She understood nothing of the illusion, but she suspected a sneer. If I were a man, I should fight for France. If Andrew thinks it is his duty to fight for England, it may be mad, but it is fine, all the same. Yesterday, in the street, I sang the Marseillais with the rest. Amor Sacré de la Patrie. Eh bien, there are other countries besides France. Do you deny that the Amor Sacré exists for the Englishman? Andrew rose, and gravely took Elodie's face in his delicate hands, and kissed her. I never did you the wrong, my dear, of thinking you would feel otherwise. Neither did I, my good Elodie, said Backers, horribly opportunist. If I have had one ambition in my life, it is to sun myself in the vicarious glamour of a hero. The corsets rolled off Elodie's lap as she turned swiftly. You really think, Henri, if he enlisted in the English army would be a hero? Without doubt, replied Backers. I am glad, said Elodie, you have such a habit of mocking all the world that when you are talking of serious things one doesn't know what you mean. So peace was made. In the agitated days that followed, she saw that a profound patriotism underlay Backers' cynicism, and she relied much on his counsel. Every man that England could put into the field was a soldier fighting for France. She glowed at the patriotic idea. Andrew, to his great gladness, noted that no hint of the cry, what is to become of me, passed her lips. She counted on his loyalty as he had counted on hers. When he informed her of the arrangement he had made with her lawyer for her support during his absence, all she said was, Monshe, it is far too much. I can live on half. And as for the will, let us not talk of it. It makes me shiver. Here came out all that was good in Elodie. She took the war and its obligations as she had taken her professional work. Through all her flabberness ran the rod of steel. She suffered, looking forward with terror to the unthinkable future. Already one of her friends, Jean-Dival, comedian, was a widow. What would life be without André? She trembled before the illimitable blankness. The habit of him was the habit of our life, like eating and drinking, his direction, her guiding principle. Yet she dominated her fears and showed a brave face. Often a neighbour meeting her in the quarter would say, You are fortunate, madame, you will not lose your husband. To the quarter, as indeed to all the world, they were M. A. Madame Patou. He is an Englishman, and won't be called up. She would flash with proud retort. In England men are not called up. They go voluntarily. M. Patou goes to join the English army. She was not going to make her sacrifice for nothing. Tobacco's Andrew confided the general charge of Elodie. My dear fellow, said the cynic, isn't it rather overdoing your saintly simplicity? Do you remember the fast occupatoire d'Amélie? Do I appeal to you as a squire of deserted dames, gross widows endowed with plenty? I, a man of such indefinite morals that so long as I have mutton cutlets, I don't in the least care who pays for them. Aren't you paying for this very mouthful now? You are welcome, and replied Andrew with a grin, to all the mutton that Elodie will give you. Elodie's only proclaimed grievance against Bacchus, whom otherwise she vastly admired, was his undisguised passion for free repasts. When it came to parting, Elodie wept and sobbed. He marvelled at her emotion. You love me so much, my little Elodie? Me tu am avie toute entière. Haven't you understood it? In that sense, no, he had not understood. They had arranged their lives so much as business partners, friends, faith-linked humans depend on each other for the daily amenities of a joint existence. He never suspected—never had cause to suspect—this hidden flood of sentiment. The simple man's heart responded. For such love she must be repaid. In the packed train which sped him towards England, he carried with him no small remorse for past indifference. Now, what happened to Andrew is, as I've said before, omitted from his manuscript. Nor has he vouchsafed to me in conversation anything but the rudest sketch, or we know is that he enlisted straight into the regular army the Grenadier Guards. Millions of Tommies have passed through his earlier experiences. His gymnastic training, his professional habits of accuracy, and his serious yet alert mind bore him swiftly through preliminary stages to high efficiency. In November 1914 he found himself in Flanders. Wounded, a few months afterwards, he was sent home, patched up, sent back again. Late in 1915, a sergeant, he had his first leave which he spent in Paris. Elodie received him with open arms. She was impressed by the marshal bearing of her ramrod of a man, and she proudly fingered the three stripes on his sleeve and the DCM ribbon on his breast. She took him for walks. She, who in her later supininess hated it to put one foot before the other, by the Grand Boulevard, the Rue Royale, the Place de la Concorde, the Champs-Elyse, hanging on his arm with a recudescence of the defiant air of the Marseille gamine. She made valiant efforts to please her hero, who bled in great battles, and had returned to fight in great battles again. She had a thousand things to tell him of her life in Paris, to which the man, weary of the mud and the blood of war, listened as though they were revelations of paradise. Yet she had but existed idly day in and day out in the eternal wraparand slippers, with her cage of birds. The little beast kept her alive, it was true. One was dull in Paris without men, and the women of her acquaintance, mostly professional, were in poverty. They had the same cry. My dear, let me tell you, Franks, my little Elodie, I am on the rocks, my man is killed. My bienné me, I am starving, you who are at ease, let me come and eat with you." And so on and so on. Her heart grieved for them, but covered to one was not a charitable institution. So it was all very sad and heart-rending, to say nothing of her own. To say nothing of her early anxiety. If only the salgueur would cease, and they could go on tour again. Ah, those happy days! Were they, after all, so very happy? asked Andrew. One was contented, free from care. But now? May they not come to term me at any minute that you are killed? That's true, said Andrew gravely. And besides? she paused. Besides what? I love you more now, replied Elodie. Which gave Andrew food for thought, whenever he had time at the front to consider the appetite. When next he had a short leave it was as a lieutenant. But Elodie had gone to Marseilles, braving the tedious third-at-last journey to attend her mother's funeral. There, Madame Figasso, having died in Testate, she battled with authorities and lawyers and the Wichitae Boudin, who professed her heartbreak at our unfilial resistance on claiming her little inheritance. With the energy which she always displayed in the serious things of life, she routed them all. She sold the furniture, the dress-making business, rested the greasy bag of savings from the hands of her phallonias and discomforted in Boudin, and returned to Paris with some few thousand francs in her pocket. A ratio backers, meanwhile, had moved into the Saint Denis Flat to take care of the birds. Nobody in France craving the services of a light tenor, he would have starved, had not his detested brother, the Archdeacon, a rich man, made him a small allowance. It was a sad day for him when, after a couple of months snug lying, he had to take himself to his attic under the roof, where he shivered in the coldest city. I die of convention, said he. Behold, you have a spare room, centrally heated. You are virtue itself. I not only occupy the sacred position of your guardian, but I am humiliatingly aware of my supreme lack of attraction. And yet, Fichement Lecombe laughed at me. And backers took up his old green valise and returned to his eerie. There should be no scandal in the faux-bon Saint Denis if Elédique could help it. But a few days later, Ah, cheminouille, cheminouille, she cried in an accent of boredom. Then backers elaborated a Machiavellian idea. Why shouldn't she work? At what? Why hadn't she a troupe of trained birds? Madame Patouille was not the first comrade in the Vararty world. She could get engagement to the provinces. How did she know that the war would not last longer than Andrew's savings? Mon Dieu, it is true, she said. Fourthwith she went to the agent Monion. After a few weeks she started on the road with her aviary, and backers once more left his eerie to take charge of the flat to the faux-bon Saint Denis. It came to pass that the next time Andrew and Elédique met in their Paris house, he wore a major's crown and the ribbons of the distinguished service order, the military cross, and the Legion of Honor. From his letters she had grasped but little of his career and growing distinction, but the sight of him drove her mad with pride. If she had loved to parade the Paris streets with him as a sergeant, now she could scarcely bear to exist with him otherwise than in public places. Not only an officer, but almost a colonel, and decorated, he an English officer with the Legion of Honor, the British decorations she scarcely understood, but they made a fine display. The salutes from uniform men of every nation almost turned her head. The little restaurant round the corner, where they had eaten for so many years, suddenly appeared to her an inappropriate setting for his exalted rank. She rallied against its meanness. Let us eat, then, laughter Andrew had not given the matter of thought, on the plaster of Madeleine. But if the restaurant mangan in the faux-barg sondanie was too lowly, the restaurant veber frightened her by its extravagance. She hit upon the middle course of engaging a cook for the wonderful fortnight of his leave, and busying herself with collaborating in the preparation of succulent meals. My dear child, said Andrew, sitting at his own table in the tiny and seldom used salamange for the first time since the early disastrous experience of high-keeping, why in the world have we had this coziness before? He seemed to have entered a new world of sacred domesticity. The outward material sound of the inward grace drew him nearer to her than all protestations of affection. Why have you waited all these years? he asked. Energy expansive, rejoicing in the success of the well-cooked dinner, reproached herself generously. It was all her fault. Before the war she had been ignorant, idle. But the war had taught her many things. Above all, it had taught her to value her petit-homme. Because you now see him in his true colours, observed Bakkers, who took for granted a seat at the table as the payment for his guardianship, the drill sergeant I always taught you about. Sgt.? Elodie flung up her head in disdain. He is commandant, and see to it that you are not wanting in the respect. From which outburst of conjugal ferocity, my dear fellow, said Bakkers, you can gauge the conscientiousness of my guidance of Elodie during your absence. Andrew grinned happily. He was full of faith in both of them. Loving woman, loyal friend. It is true, said he, that I have found my vocation. What are you going to do when the war is over and Othello's occupation is gone? I don't think the war will ever be over, he laughed. It's no good looking ahead. For the present one has to regard soldiering as a permanent pursuit. I thought so, said Bakkers. He'll cry when it's over, and he can't move his pretty soldiers about. That is true, asked Elodie in the turn of one possessive insight. Andrew shrugged his shoulders. A French trick out of harmony with his British uniform. Perhaps, said he with a sigh. I too, said Elodie, will be sorry when you become Petit Patoux again. He touched her cheek caressingly with the back of his hand, and smiled. Strange how the war had brought her the gift of understanding. Never had he felt so close to her. All the same, added Elodie, it is very dangerous, l'abbe, Montcharris, and I don't want you to get killed. All the Rory and none of the death, said Bakkers, conducted on those principles warfare would be ideal employment for the young. But you would be going back to the Middle Ages, wherein if a knight were killed he was vastly surprised and annoyed. Personally I hate the war. It prevents me from earning a living, and insults me with the sense of my age, physical decay and incapacity. I haven't a good word to say for it. If you only went among the wounded in the Paris hospitals, replied Andrew with some asperity, and sang to them, my good fool, said Bakkers, I've been doing that for about four or five hours a day since the war began, till I've no voice left. Didn't you know, cried Elodie, Horace has never worked so hard in his life, and for nothing. In his way he is a hero like you. Why, the devil didn't you tell me, cried Andrew. Bakkers flung a hand. If you hadn't to dress the part, what should I have known of your rank and orders? Would you go about saying I'm a damn fine fellow? I'm sorry, said Andrew, filling his guest's glass. I ought to have taken it for granted. We give entertainment together, said Elodie. He sings, and I take the birds. Ah, the poilou! They are like children. When Ricky Key takes off Paulette's cap they twist themselves up with laughing. Il faut voir ça. This was all news to Andrew, and it delighted him beyond measure. He could take away now to the trenches the picture of Elodie as ministering angels surrounded by her birds, an exquisite, romantic, soul-satisfying picture. But why, he asked again, didn't you tell me? Ah, you see, letters, I'm not very good at letters. Vente d'éducation. I want so much to tell you what I feel that I forget to tell you what I do. Bakkers smiled sardonically as he sipped his liqueur brandy. She'd given her bird performance on only two occasions. She had exaggerated it into the gracious habit of months or years. Just like a woman. Anyhow, the disillusionment of Andrew was none of his business. The dear old chap was eating lotus in his fool's paradise, thinking it genuine pre-war lotus and not war asats. It would be a crime to disabuse him. For Andrew the days of leave sped quickly. Not a domestic cloud darkened his relations with Elodie. Through indolent and careless living she had grown gross and coarse, too unshapely and unseemly for her age. When the news of his speedy arrival in Paris reached her, she caught sight of herself in her mirror, and with a sudden pang realized her lack of attraction. In a fever she corseted herself, creamed her face, set a coiffure to work with his will on her hair. But what retrieval of lost comeliness could be affected in a day or two? The utmost thing of practical value she could do was to buy a new gay dressing gown and a pair of high-heeled slippers. And Andrew, conscious of waning beauty, overlooked it in the light of her new and unsuspected cockatry. Where once the slat and lulled about the little salon, now moved an attractively garbed and tidy woman. Instead of the trove, he found a housewife who made up in zeal for lack of experience. The patriotic soldier's mate replaced the indifferent and often times querulous partner of Le Petit Patu. It is true that, when, in answer to the question, a battle what is that like, he tried to interest her in a scientific exposition she would interrupt him, a lovebird on her finger and its beak at her lips with, look, isn't he sweet? thereby throwing him out of gear. It is true that she yawned and frankly confessed her boredom, as she had done for many years when the talk of Andrew and Bacchus went beyond her intellectual horizon. But, Kavulivu, even a great war cannot, in a few months, supply the deficiencies of thirty uneducated years. For heart, the generous instinct, these were the things that the war had awakened in entity, and these were the things that mattered and made him so gracious a homecoming. And she had grasped the inner truth of the war. She had accepted it in the grand manner, like a daughter of France. So at least it seemed to Andrew. The depth of her feeling he did not try to gauge, into the part in her demonstrativeness played by vanity or by momentary reaction from the dread of losing him, her means of support, it never entered his head to inquire. That she should sun herself in reflected splendour for the benefit of the quarter and of such friends as she had, and that she should punctiliously exact from them the respect due to his military rank afforded him gentle amusement. He knew that, as soon as his back was turned, she would relapse into slip-shod ways. But her efforts delighted him, proved her love and her loyalty. For the third time he parted from her to go off to the walls, more impressed than ever by the sense of his inappreciation of her virtues. He wrote her a long letter of self-upraiding for the past, and the contrast between the slimy dugout where he was writing by the light of one guttering candle, and the coating salon he had just quitted being productive of nostalgia, he expressed himself, for once in his life, in the terms of an ardent lover. Ennedy, who found his handwriting difficult to read at the best of times, and undecipherable in hard pencil on thin paper, handed the letter over to the faithful backers, who read it aloud with a running commentary of ironic humour. This Andrew did not know till long afterwards. In a few weeks he got the command of his battalion. Abacus wrote, How you'll be able to put up with us now, I know not. Ennedy can scarcely put up with herself. She gives orders in writing to tradesmen now, and subscribes herself, Madame la colonel patout. She's turned down a bird engagement offer by Moynion, as beneath her present dignity. You'd better come home as soon as you can. Andrew laughed, and threw the letter away. He had far more serious things to attend to than Ennedy's pretty foibles. And when you are commanding a crack regiment in a famous division in the line, you no more think of leave than of running away from the enemy. Months passed, of fierce fighting and incessant strain, and he covered himself with glory and completed the rainbow-rare ribbons on his breast, until Petipatou, and Eledi, and Abacus, and the apartment of the Föberg Sondanie, became things of a far-off dream. And, before he saw Eledi again, he had met Lady Aureole Dane. End of CHAPTER XI That was the devil of it. He had met Lady Aureole Dane. He'd found in that frank and capable young woman, or thought he had found, which comes to the same thing, the process loitering of his dreams. If she'd differed from that nebulous and characterless paragon, but less ethereal, more human nature's daily food, so much the better. She possessed that which she had yearned for. Quality. She had style, like the prose of Theofil Goutier, the Venus of Mino, the Petit Trénon. She suggested Diana, who more than all goddesses displayed this gift of distinction, yet she was not too Diana-ish to be unapproachable. On the contrary, she blew about him as free as the wind. That, in a muddle-headed way, was his impression of her, a subtle mingling of nature and artistry. On every side of her he beheld perfection. Physically she was as elemental as the primitive woman superbly developed by daily conditions of hardship and danger, spiritually as elemental as the elves and fairies, and over her mind played the wisdom of the world. Thus, in trying to account for her to himself, did the honest lackaday flounder from trope to metaphor. To love her, he quotes from Steele, is a liberal education. The last time he met her in England was after my departure for Paris. He will remember that just before then he had confided to me his identity as Petit Patou, and had kept me up half the night. It was a dismal April afternoon, rain and mud outside, a hopeless negation of the spring. They had the drawing-room to themselves. To no one, the order had gone forth, was her ladyship at home. That drawing-room of Lady Oriole, which lackaday had regarded as the most exquisite room in the world. It had comfort of soft chairs and bright fire and the smell of tea and cigarettes. But it also had the style, to him so precious, with which his fancy invested her. The note of the room was red lacquer, partly inherited, partly collected, the hangings of a harmonious tone, and the only pictures on the distemper walls the colour prints of the late 18th century. It had the glow of smiling austerity, the unceasable paradoxical quality of herself. An old Sevre tea-service rested on a Georgian silver tray, which leaned in the far light. Wherever he looked he beheld perfection. And, pouring out the tea, stood the divinity, a splendid contrast to the shrine, yet again paradoxically harmonious, full bosomed, warm and olive, wearing blue-surge coat and skirt, her blouse open at her smooth throat, her cheeks flushed with walking through the rain, her eyes kind. For a while, like a night in the Venusburg, he gave himself up to the delight of her. Then suddenly he pulled himself together, and, putting down his teacup, he said what he had come to say. This is the last time that I shall ever see you. She started. What on earth do you mean? Are you going off to the other end of the world? I am going back to France. When? Tomorrow morning. She twisted round in her chair, her elbow on the arm, and her chin in her hand, and looked at him. That's sudden, isn't it? He smiled rather sadly. When once you've made up your mind it's best to act instead of hanging on. You're sure there's no hope in this country? I know I'm as useful as a professional wine-taster will soon be in the United States. They laughed, resumed the discussion of many previous meetings. Had he tried this, that, or the other opening? He had tried everything. No one wanted him. So, said he, I make a clean cut, and returning to France. I'm sorry, she sighed. Very sorry, you know I am. I hoped you would remain in England and find some occupation worthy of you. But after all, France isn't central China. We shall still be next door neighbours. The channel can be easily crossed by one of us. You use the word ever, you know, she added, with an error of challenge. I did. Why? That would take a lot of telling, said Andrew Grimley. We've got hours if you choose in front of us. It's not a question of time, said he. There my good Andrew, what are you talking about? Only that I must return to the place I came from, my dear friend. Let it rest at that. She lit a cigarette. Rather fatalistic, isn't it? Four years of fighting make one so. You speak, said she, after a little reflection, occasionally knitting of the brows. You speak like the mysterious unknown of the old legends. The being sent from hell or heaven or any other old place to the earth to accomplish a mission. You know what I mean. He lives the life of the world into which he's thrown and finds it very much to his liking. But when the mission is fulfilled, the paths that sent him say, Your time is up, return whence you came. And the poor and make-believe of a human has got to vanish. You surely aren't jesting, he asked. No, she said, God forbid, I have too deep a regard for you. Besides, I believe the parable is applicable. Otherwise, how can I understand your forever? I'm glad you understand without my blundering into an explanation, he replied. It's something, as you say. Only the legendary fellow goes back to cool his heels, all the reverse, in Shadowland, whereas I'll still continue to inhabit the comfortable earth. I'm as earthbound as can be. He paused for a moment and continued, Fate, or what you will, dragged me from obscurity into the limelight of the wall to play my little part. It's over. I've nothing more to do on the stage. Fate rings down the curtain. I must go back into obscurity. La Commedia e Finita. It's more like a tragedy, said she. Andrew may digest you with his delicate hands. A comedy is not a farce. Let us stick to the comedy. Let's hurrah clip. Let us play the game, she suggested. If you like to put it that way. She regarded him searching me out of frank eyes. Her face had grown pale. If you gave me the key to your material Shadowland, it would not be playing the game. You're right, my dear, said he. It wouldn't. I thought as much, said Lady Aurel. He rose, mechanically adjusting his jacket, which always went awry eye on his gold frame. I want to say something, he did learn abruptly. You're the only lady, a highly bred woman, with whom I've been on terms of friendship in my life. It has been an experience far more wonderful than you can possibly realise. I'll keep it as an imperishable memory. He spoke bolder upright as though he were addressing troops on parade before a battle. It's right that you should know I'm not ungrateful for all that you've done for me. I've only one ambition left, that you should remember me as a soldier, and, in my own way, a gentleman. A very gallant gentleman, she said, with quivering lips. He held out his hand, took hers, kissed it, French fashion. Good-bye, and God bless you, said he, and marched out of the room. She stood for a while, with her hand on her heart, suffering a pain that was almost physical. Then she rushed to the door, and cried an allowed voice over the balustrade of the landing. Andrew, come back! But the slam of the front door drowned her call. She returned to the drawing-room and threw up the window. Andrew was already far away, tearing down the rain-swept street. Now, if Andrew had heard the cry, he would have heard that in it which no man can hear unmoved. He would have leaped up the stairs, and there would have been as pretty a little scene of mutual avows as you could wish for. Horiol knew it. She has frankly told me so. Not until this last interview was she certain of his love. But then, although he said nothing, any fool of a woman could have seen it as clear as daylight. And she had been planted there like a stuck pig all the time. Her ipsissima verba. Oh Diana, distinction of lovers' fancy. And when common sense came to her aid, she just missed him by the fraction of a second. Yet, after all, my modern Diana, or Andrews you would prefer it, had her own modern mode of telling an elderly outsider about her love affairs, the mode of the Subbleton from whom he was dragged to the story of his Victoria Cross. Andrew Lackaday's quaintly formulated idealisations had their foundations in fact. This is, by the way, what happened next was Lady Horiol's recovery of real common sense when she withdrew her head and her rained-upon hat from the window and drew down the sash. She flew to her bedroom, stamped about with tenched fists, until she had dried up at their source the unaudio-like tears that threatened to burst forth. Her fury at her weakness spent, she felt better and strangled the temptation to write him then and there as summons to return that evening for a full explanation. My God! hadn't they had their explanation? If you could in honour have said, I am a free live man, as you are a free live woman, and I love you as you love me, wouldn't he have said it? He was the last man in the world to make a mystery about nothing. Into the mystery she was too proud to inquire. Enough for her to know in her heart that he was a gallant gentleman. She should have stopped at her parable. Meanwhile she let Andrew return to France unaware of the tumult he had raised. That he had won her interest, her respect, her friendship, even her affectionate friendship, he was perfectly aware. But that his divinity was just foolishly and humanly in love with him, he had no notion. He consoled himself with reflections on her impeccability, her wondrous intuition, her faraway princess-like delicacy. Who but she could have summed up in a parable the whole dismal situation? Well, the poor make-believe had to vanish. The last time he travelled to Beloyne it was in a military train. He had a bat-man who looked after his luggage. He wore a baton and soared on his shoulder straps. Only now, a civilian in a packed mass of civilian, did he recognise what a mighty personage he then was. A cock of the walk, saluted, sirred, treated with deference. None of the old-fashioned pit of the theatre's scrum for passport inspection on the smoking-room deck. And there, on the key, were staff officers and RTOs awaiting him with a great car. No worry about customs or luggage or anything. Everything done for him by eager young men without his bidding. And he had thought nothing of it. Indeed, if there had been a hitch in the machinery which conveyed him to his brigade, he would have made it hot for the defaulter. And now, with the third share in a porter, he struggled through the customs in the midst of the perspiring civilian crowd, and, emerging onto the platform, found a comfortless middle-seat in an old German first-class carriage built for four. There were still many men in uniform, English, French and American, doing heaven knows what about the busy station. But none took notice of him, and he lounged disconsolently by the carriage door, waiting for the train to start. He scarcely knew which of his experiences, then or now, was an illusion. In spite of the civilian horde, women, young girls, mufty-clad men, the station still preserved a military aspect. A company of blue-clad puulu sat somewhat way off in the middle of their packs, eating a scratched meal. Here and there were bunches of British tommys, with the sergeant and a desultory officer, obviously under discipline. It seemed impossible that the war should have been ended, that he, General Lackaday, should have finished with it for ever. At last a young sobbleton passed him by, recognized him after a second, saluted and paused undecided. A few months ago Andrew would have returned his salute with brass-hatted majesty, but now he smiled his broad ear-to-ear smile, thrust out his long arm and gripped the young man's hand. He was Smithson, one of his brigade staff, a youth of mediocre efficiency, on whom, as the youth remembered, he was wont most austerely to frown. But all this Andrew forgot. My dear boy, he cried, how glad I am to see you! It was as if a survivor from a real world had appeared before him in a land of dreams. He questioned him animatedly on his doings. The boy responded, wanderingly. At last, when are you going to be demobilized? Sumbleton smiled. I hope never, sir. I'm a regular. Lucky devil, said Andrew. How are you lucky devil? I give anything to change places with you. I'm on, sir, last Smithson. I'm all for being a brigadier general. Not on the retired list, out of the service, said Andrew. The train began to move. Andrew jumped hastily into his compartment, and, leaning out of the window before the stout Frenchman, waved a hand to the insignificant young man in the king's uniform. With all his soul he envied him the privilege of wearing it. He cursed his stiff-neckedness in declining the major's commission offered by the War Office. A line of Tennyson reminiscent of the days when Bacchus had guided his reading came into his head. Something about a man's own angry pride being cap and bells for a fool. He tried to find repose against the edge of the sharp double-curve that divided the carriage side into two portions. The trivial discomfort irritated him. The German compartment might be a symbol of victory, but it was also a symbol of the end of the war, the end of the only intense life full of meaning which he had ever known. As the train drew on he caught sight from the window of immense stores of war. German wagons with their military destinations still marked in chalk. Painted guns of all calibres, drums of barbed wire, higgled epically truckloads of scrap, all sorts of flotsam and jetsam of the great conflict. All useless, done with, never to be thought of again, so the world hoped, in the millennium that was to be brought about by the League of Nations. Yet it seemed impossible. In wayside camps, at railway stations, he saw troops of the three great countries. Now and then, trainloads of them passed. It was impossible that the mighty hosts they represented should soon melt away into the dull flood of civil life. The war had been such a mighty, such a gallant thing. Of course, the genius of mankind must now be bent to the reconstruction of a shattered world. He knew that. He knew that regret at the ending of the Universal Slaughter would be the sentiment of a homicidal lunatic. Yet deep down in his heart there was some such regret, annoying nostalgia. After Amiens they passed by the battlefields. A young American officer sitting by the eastern window pointed them out to him. He explained to Andrew what places had been British gun emplacements, pointed to the white chalk lines that had been British trenches, told him what a trench looked like. Andrew listened grimly. The youth had pointed out a window again. Did he know what those were? Those were shell-holes, German shells. Presently the conductor came through to examine tickets. Andrew drew from his pocket his worn, campaigning notecase, and accidentally dropped a letter. The young American politely picked it up, but the typewritten address on the war-office envelope caught his eye. Brigadier General Lackaday C.B. He handed it to Andrew, flushing scarlet. Is that your name, sir? It is, said Andrew. Now I reckon, sir, I've been making a fool of myself. Every man, said Andrew, with his disarming smile, is bound to do that once in his life. It's best to get it over as soon as possible. That's the way one learns, especially in the army. But the young man's talk had rubbed in his complete civilian dawn. As the train neared Paris his heart sank lower and lower. The old pre-war life claimed him mercilessly. And he was frozen with a dread which he had never felt on the far step in the cold dawn awaiting the lagging hour of zero. On the entrance to the garden o'er, he went into the corridor and looked through the window. He saw Elodie afar off. Elodie in a hat over her eyes, a fur round her neck, her skirt cut nearly up to her knees, showing fat, white-stockinged calves. She put on much flesh. The great train stopped and vomited forfeit's horde of scurrying humans. Elodie called side of him and rushed and threw herself into his arms and embraced him rapturously. Oh, my André, it is good to have you back. Oh, mon petit-homme, how I have been longing for this moment. Now the war is finished, you will not leave me again ever. Et voilà, général. You must be proud, eh? But your uniform, I who have made certain, I should see you in uniform. He smiled at her characteristic pounce on externals. I no longer belong to the army, my little Elodie, he replied, walking with her, his porter in front, to the barrier. Me tu es toujours, général? She asked anxiously. I keep the rank, said André. And the uniform, you can wear it, you will put it on sometimes to please me. They drove home through twilight Paris. Her arm passed through his, while she chattered gaily. Was it not good to smell Paris again after London, with its fogs and ugliness and raw beef steaks? Tonight she would give him such a dinner, so he had never eaten in England, and not for two years. Did he realise that it was two years since he had seen her? Mon Dieu, said he, so it is. And you are pleased to have me again? Can you doubt it? He smiled. Ah, one never knows. What can't a man do in two years? Especially when he becomes a high personage, a great general full of honours and decorations. The gods of peace have arrived, my little Elodie, said he, with a touch of bitterness. And the little half-gods of war are eclipsed. If you go to a restaurant, there's no reason why the writer, with his napkin under his arm, should be an ex-colonel of Zouave. All the glory of the war has ended, my dear. A breath—few—out goes the candle. But Elodie would have none of this pessimistic philosophy. You are a general to the end of your days. They mounted to the flat in the faux-burgs on Denny. To Andrew, a custom of late months to the greater spaciousness of English herms, it seemed small and confined and close. It smelt of birds—several cages of which occupied a side of the sun. Instinctively he threw open a window. Instinctively also, the grandeur, cried Elodie. Just for a minute, said Andrew, and added diplomatically, I want to see what changes there are in the street. It's always the same, said Elodie. I will go and see about dinner. So, till she returned, he kept the window open and looked about the room. It was neat as a new pin, read it up against his arrival. His books had been taken from their cases and dusted. The wild displacement of volumes that should have gone in series betrayed the hand of the zealous, though inexpert, librarian. The old curtains had been cleaned. The anti-Macassas over the backs of chairs and sofa had been freshly washed. The floor polished. Not a greasy novel or a straggling garment defiled the spotlessness of the room, which, but for the row of birds and the books, looked as if it subserved no human purpose. A crazy what-not, imitation lacquer and bamboo, the only piece of decorative furniture, were stacked with photographs of variety artists, male and female, in all kinds of stage costumes, with sprawling signatures across, the collection of years of touring, all struplessly dusted and accurately set out. A few cheap prints in maple frames at the door of the walls, always a skew, he remembered, had been adjusted to the horizontal. On the chenille-covered table in the middle of the room stood a vase with artificial flowers. The straight-backed chairs upholstered in yellow and brown silk stood close sentry under the prints in their anti-Macassas uniforms. Two yellow and brown arm-chairs guarded the white-fiance stove. The sofa against the wall frowned sternly at the what-not on the opposite side. Andrew's orderly soul felt aghast at this mathematical tidiness. Even the old slovenly chaos was better, at least it expressed something human. And then the picture of that other room, so exquisite, so impregnated with the faraway princess spirit of its creator, rose up before him, and he sighed and rubbed his fingers through his red-stubbly hair, and made a whimsical grimace and said, Oh, damn! an entity then bursting in with a proud, Isn't it pretty dompeti chétois? Or could he do but smile, and assure her that no soldier home from the wars could have a more beautifully regulated home? And you have looked enough at the street? Andrew shot the window.